If the belief that knowing astrology can better one's life has any truth to it, then it would certainly be important for us to pay more attention to the transiting planets, especially during the times when they get close to our natal planets as well as crucial areas of our chart.

I have seen many a student look years ahead in an ephemeris to try to find a period in their life that they can look forward to, in anticipation of a particular transit. It is of course, natural to think this way. However, what actually happens in fact is a far cry from what is normally expected.

How many times have you anticipated a transit over one of your planets, or midpoints, or angles in your chart and after waiting some months or years for the transit to occur, found that regardless of all your expectations, when the transit finally occurred, - nothing happened to make a noticeable difference in your life!

This has for many years been one of the most seemingly contradictory violations of astrological influence that most students of astrology have at one time or another experienced. For some, this kind of lack-of-occurrence can easily shake their belief in astrological theory itself.

Yet, if we understand why this happens, we might get a very different view of life and our place in it.

There are a lot of things in life that offer opportunities, yet you cannot partake of all of them. For example, if a big sports event is occurring in your local arena but you do not have the price of admission, then you cannot attend it. As a result, the event goes by with no influence to your life.

If a recent snowstorm has frozen over a nearby lake and made it perfect for ice skating, you cannot partake of this opportunity if you do not have ice skates or the experience to know how to skate. Again, the universe presents an opportunity, but it is only for you if you have paid the admission.

In Astrology, the same thing happens. A transit occurs, but the expected effects of it can only be experienced by those who have paid their karma for it, in the area of life it is effecting. To see this, consider a Jupiter transit over natal Mercury. This would expand knowledge, presumably giving the individual a broader understanding of whatever is on their mind. The point is, that a person who has not karmically evolved their mind, might get little or no benefit from such a transit.

A janitor might find a better cleaning product, and for him, the results of the transit would go basically unnoticed. On the other hand, someone who has worked on their Mercury for many years or many lifetimes, and has earned the karmic right to have it well aspected and well placed by sign or house, may well be a college professor or a great thinker of our time. Under the very same transit that hardly benefited the janitor at all, this individual may well come up with a theory that advances mankind.

In yet another example, consider the woman who has a pattern of getting involved with men that are bad for her. She may constantly find herself attracted to individuals who cannot shoulder responsibility. Yet, she keeps believing that under the right transit this will all change. She may even make several marriages, all ending with the same dismal results, because she has not yet looked at the Karma of her behavior patterns. Once she does, and begins to resolve her karmic problems, then she becomes ready for real change to occur in her life whenever beneficial transits trigger the karmic lessons she has learned in her natal planets.

The important point to this is that it is far less important to know where the transits are or try to anticipate how they will affect you, then to pay your the Karma of every planet in your chart properly, so that whenever transits effect them, you will be karmically ready and deserving to benefit from the transits' power for change.

It is my fervent hope that my books bring this lesson across, so that no matter what the time is in history, or transits going through your chart, you are applying to your Karma in this life, rather than waiting for the heavens to do it for you!